I completely agree with the notion that the translation must feel alive at the minimum, even at the cost of some unfaithfulness. This is the idea that has been repeatedly discusses and explored in the past readings - literal translation, most often times, do not flow and read naturally most of the times - which can sound foreign to target audience and thus fail to translate.
What really stuck with this reading was how the best way to translate "Itadakimasu" can be simply silence - as there is no direct translation in English and it is not something English speaking population practice and say. This well supports Terry's argument that dictionaries fail to offer insight into the pragmatic layer of languages and thus, translators and interpreters should know the social convention of they are translating to, which I also agree.
I really enjoyed the "Linguistic Hell" reading, as it offered a higher-level approach in translation, where it recognized the inherent difference between the English and the Japanese language. Specifically, the argument about how Japanese essays can be loosely organized and rely on shared background knowledge felt home, as that is exactly what we saw in this week's assignment. The article was written in the assumption that everyone knows what Empress Masako went through - because the Japanese have much more of a homogeneous audience compared to the States, where it is well accepted there are distinct set of audiences (Politically, racially, religiously, etc).
Marcus
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